NINETY YEARS SINCE LENIN'S BODY WAS FIRST PUT ON DISPLAY

LENIN'S FIRST 

MAUSOLEUM 

ERECTED 

January 27, 1924 

SPECTATORS AT 

VLADIMIR LENIN'S TOMB 

Red Square, Moscow, 1984 

Six days after Soviet revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin died on January 21, 1924, his body was placed in a wooden mausoleum on Red Square.  The permanent monument was installed in 1930. Sixty years and some months after Lenin's death, I made my first visit to the USSR, and joined the procession going past the embalmed body; the photograph above was made then, in the summer of 1984. 

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there have been periodic calls to find another burying place for the iconic Soviet leader (Stalin's body, which joined Lenin's after his death in 1953, having been removed long ago now). 

But, instead, in 2012 the mausoleum was closed for a re-do, re-opened the following spring.  And six days ago, pilgrims came to mark the ninetieth anniversary of Lenin's death. 

A vivid diagrammatic sketch of the mausoleum is here; a glimpse of the body and a quick look at the inside of the tomb can be found in a short video, here, with additional information here. 

A photograph of the former changing of the guards ceremony is here; another view of the mausoleum, here.